Usually, technological change supplants entire product categories. Automobiles replaced horse-drawn buggies; refrigerators replaced iceboxes. The following enterprises, by all estimates, should have gone the way of the Edsel. Yet, through foresight, dogged perseverance and an uncanny ability to adapt, they continue to serve customers, functioning as mini-monuments to days gone by.
VCR repair
AA All Electronic Repair Service
When Ardian Mile bought his electronic repair business in East Meadow in 2000, it specialized in fixing video cassette recorders. In fact, the shop on Hempstead Turnpike was called 60 Minute VCR. But since the VCR has been replaced by the DVD player, Mile didn’t think that made much sense, especially since he can fix DVD players and just about everything else as well.
So he renamed the business AA All Electronic Repair Service. And when Mile says all electronics, he means it.
The former telecom engineer from Albania repairs reel-to-reel tape recorders, tube-driven amplifiers and radios, phonograph turntables (remember those?), televisions, camcorders and of course, VCRs.
“People bring in a VCR and they get surprised when they find out I can fix it,” Mile said. Oh, and just in case you didn’t think this repairman was a real throwback, he makes house calls, too.
This article is excerpted from the Long Island Business News as part of a partnership with Long Island Wins. To read the full article, click here.
